Director of ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ goes off deep “End” with new comedy

Thursday, February 21, 2013 -- Anonymous (not verified)

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Movie Reviews

Friday, February 22, 2013

Author(s):

James Verniere

"John Dies at the End,” the spoiler-titled sci-fi-horror hybrid opening today, is something of a letdown after the glorious cheeseball delights of “Bubba Ho-Tep” (2002), the previous feature from veteran Don Coscarelli. B-horror-movie auteur Coscarelli made his name with “Phantasm,” a low-budget 1979 film about a boy grappling with the supernatural that was an antidote to “E.T.” and the film that introduced the world to “The Tall Man” character and actor Angus Scrimm.

The more recent “Bubba Ho-Tep” is set in a Texas retirement home where an old Elvis impersonator (Bruce Campbell) and fellow resident (Ossie Davis), who is convinced he is JFK, join forces to battle an ancient Egyptian mummy. Based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, “Bubba Ho-Tep” is hard to top.

Also based on a story, in this case by pseudonymous author David Wong, “John Dies at the End” comes close, but often plays more like an extended, more comic version of TV’s “Supernatural.”

The action begins with non-Asian Dave Wong (amiable, if also generic-looking Chase Williamson) chopping the head off a zombie with a swastika tattoo. Dave then meets reporter Arnie Blondestone (a game, if underused Paul Giamatti, who also produced) in an ornate Chinese restaurant to talk about a designer drug called — what else? — soy sauce. The sauce is a black fluid that passes from person to person in the form of a cloud of white, winged, insectlike creatures. Soy sauce causes users to hallucinate and turn into zombielike creatures whose faces can explode into a nest of vipers. It’s kind of like MSG. A disturbingly phalliclike slug-thing is also involved.

The action also features a hotdog cellphone, a dog named Bark Lee and Dr. Albert Marconi (Clancy Brown), an infomercial celeb­rity with a pair of comely twin assistants. The hapless John (Rob Mayes) is infected by soy sauce and may or may not be dead before the end. Coscarelli’s visual imagination is still capable of making you sit up and take notice. In one scene set in a demonic basement, a freezer door flies open and its contents assemble themselves into a humanoid form complete with a turkey head that talks out of its wazoo and bratwurst appendages.

The finale boasts an evil Cthulhu-like entity and also a killer animated sequence. Also in the cast are Doug Jones (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) and, yes, that is Scrimm as an old priest.